Last Tango in Paris (1972)

Last Tango in Paris (Italian: Ultimo tango a Parigi; French: Le Dernier Tango à Paris) is a 1972 erotic drama film directed by Bernardo Bert...

Last Tango in Paris (Italian: Ultimo tango a Parigi; French: Le Dernier Tango à Paris) is a 1972 erotic drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, which portrays a recently widowed American who begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman. It stars Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, and Jean-Pierre Léaud. {full_page}

The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 14, 1972, and grossed $36 million in its U.S. theatrical release, the seventh highest-grossing film of 1973.  

The film's raw portrayal of sexual violence and emotional turmoil led to international controversy and drew various levels of government censorship in different jurisdictions. 

Upon release in the United States, the MPAA gave the film an X rating. United Artists Classics released a R-rated cut in 1981. In 1997, after the film became part of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library, the film was reclassified NC-17.

Paul (Brando), a middle-aged American hotel owner mourning the suicide of his wife Rosa, meets a young, engaged Parisian woman named Jeanne (Maria Schneider) at an apartment that both are interested in renting. Paul takes the apartment after they begin an anonymous sexual relationship there. He insists that neither of them must share any personal information, even given names, much to Jeanne's dismay. The affair continues until one day, after sexually abusing her, Jeanne arrives at the apartment and finds that Paul has packed up and left without warning.

Paul later meets Jeanne on the street and says he wants to renew the relationship. He tells her of the recent tragedy of his wife. As he tells his life story, they walk into a tango bar, where he continues telling her about himself. The loss of anonymity disillusions Jeanne about their relationship. She tells Paul she does not want to see him again. Paul, not wanting to let Jeanne go, chases her through the streets of Paris, all the way back to her apartment, where he tells her he loves her and wants to know her name.

Jeanne takes a gun from a drawer. She tells Paul her name and shoots him. Paul staggers out onto the balcony, mortally wounded, and collapses. As Paul dies, Jeanne, dazed, mutters to herself that he was just a stranger who tried to rape her and she did not know who he was, as if in a rehearsal, preparing herself for questioning by the police.

   Stars    

Marlon Brando 

Maria Schneider 

Maria Michi 

Giovanna Galletti 

Jean-Pierre Léaud 

Massimo Girotti

Bernardo Bertolucci developed the film from his sexual fantasies: "He once dreamed of seeing a beautiful nameless woman on the street and having sex with her without ever knowing who she was". The screenplay was by Bertolucci, Franco Arcalli, and Agnès Varda (additional dialogue). It was later adapted as a novel by Robert Alley. The film was directed by Bertolucci with cinematography by Vittorio Storaro.

Bertolucci originally intended to cast Dominique Sanda, who developed the idea with him, and Jean-Louis Trintignant. Trintignant refused and, when Brando accepted, Sanda was pregnant and decided not to do the film. Brando received a percentage of the gross for the film and was estimated to have earned $3 million.

An art lover, Bertolucci drew inspiration from the works of the Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon for the opening sequence of cast and crew credits. According to American artist Andy Warhol, the Last Tango film was based on Warhol's own Blue Movie film released a few years earlier in 1969.

After the film's release, criminal proceedings were brought in Italy against the film for "esasperato pansessualismo fine a se stesso"("aggravated, gratuitous pansexualism"). The final judgment of the Court of Appeal (Cassazione) delivered on 29 January 1976 ordered that the film be seized by the censorship commission and that all copies be destroyed. Scriptwriter Franco Arcalli, producer Alberto Grimaldi, director Bernardo Bertolucci, and Marlon Brando were each given suspended sentences of two months imprisonment.

The film score was composed by Gato Barbieri, arranged and conducted by Oliver Nelson, and the soundtrack album was released on the United Artists label. AllMusic's Richie Unterberger noted "Although some of the smoky sax solos get a little uncomfortably close to 1970s fusion cliché, Gato Barbieri's score to Bertolucci's 1972 classic is an overall triumph. Suspenseful jazz, melancholy orchestration, and actual tangos fit the film's air of erotic longing, melancholy despair, and doomed fate".

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